1. No category

An Initiative on Low-Cost Monitoring of Haze Air
Quality Disaster in Rural Communities in Thailand
Apinun Tunpan1, Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh2, Giovanni Pau3
1
Internet Education and Research Laboratory (intERLab)
2 School of Environment, Resources and Development
Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand
3
LIP6, France
26 May 2015
Agenda
•
Who we are
•
Motivation
•
The Haze Problem in Northern Thailand
•
Our Initiative & Invitation
intERLab’s ICT4D :
Community Wireless Mesh Network (CWMN)
Our CWMN operates as a multi-hop village wireless mesh
network, providing Wi-Fi services to rural households
CWMN deployment in rural villages in Thailand
Rural villagers can then do VoIP calls, watch video-ondemand (VoD) and share Internet access
CWMN Abstract Arts !
Wireless Sensor Network @ AIT
Wireless Sensor Network
Testbed @ AIT
Wireless Sensor Network
Testbed @ AIT
Monitoring : pieces of “Big Data”
11
Motivation
At our two Community Wireless
Mesh Network (CWMN) deployment
s i t e s : Ta k a n d C h i a n g R a i p r o v i n c e s ,
v i l l a g e r s e n c o u n t e r h a z e e v e r y y e a r.
S A M P L E P I C T U R E S W H I L E O N O U R W AY T O A D E P L O Y M E N T S I T E
IN 2014
Haze in northern Thailand is typically
caused by post-harvest field burnings
Image credit: ThaiPBS
Haze and Particulate Matter
PM10 — coarse particulate — smaller
than 10 micrometers
typical dust
PM2.5 — fine particulate — smaller
than 2.5 micrometers
Haze, smoke
Image credit:
https://dec.alaska.gov/air/anpms/pm/pm_health.htm
Why is PM dangerous ?
Large PM causes airway irritation, aggravation of lung, heart,
asthma diseases
Fine PM can pass through body’s defense mechanisms (e.g.
nose hairs, mucous) and goes deep down into your lungs, into
your blood stream.
Image credit: http://mde.maryland.gov/programs/ResearchCenter/ReportsandPublications/Pages/ResearchCenter/publications/general/emde/
vol1no12/particlepollution_photo.aspx
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1/1/2007
Fires seen as hotspots in MODIS,
Chiangmai episode, March 07
2/12/2007
2/19/2007
2/12/2007
2/19/2007
1/29/2007
1/29/2007
2/5/2007
1/22/2007
1/22/2007
2/5/2007
1/15/2007
1/15/2007
NAAQS 24h PM10 = 120 ug/m3
1/8/2007
2/26/2007
3/5/2007
3/12/2007
3/19/2007
3/26/2007
4/2/2007
4/9/2007
4/16/2007
4/23/2007
3/5/2007
3/12/2007
3/19/2007
3/26/2007
4/2/2007
4/9/2007
4/16/2007
4/23/2007
PM-10
2/26/2007
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1/8/2007
1/1/2007
Air quality in Chiangmai in 2007
CO (24 h)
CO,
ppm
(24h)
CO, 1h NAAQS = 30 ppm
Episode
Source: raw data from PCD website
Chiangmai Haze Episode
!
!
Re-occurring event annually observed in the city
(around March each year)
Severe episodes occurred due to combination of
many factors:
◦ Mountain-valley topographical type! limited dispersion of
air pollutants
◦ Surrounded by forest and agricultural area ! prone to
receive smoke from forest fire and agro-residue open
burning in dry season
◦ Intensive local emission build-up typical for urban area
!
Affects tourisms (cancelled/diverted flights),
economy and health
How bad it is?
!
!
!
!
!
Example of severe haze episode in March 2007
Whole Chiangmai city was blanketed by haze for
few weeks
Chiangrai was declared as “disaster zone”
24 hour average of PM10 was observed around
396 µg/m3 (NAAQS of Thai: 120 µg/m3) (Kim Oanh
and Leelasakultum, 2012)
Increased number of respiratory patients recorded
from 23 public hospitals in March 2007 (CMPHO,
2008)
Available air quality monitoring station in Chiangmai
!
2 automatic ambient monitoring stations in the city
operated by PCD (Yupparaj School and City Hall)
!
1 AERONET station is dedicated for aerosol and
optical properties observation
!
No station is available at remote area
!
There is a need to have more air quality
monitoring stations in many places ! support for
haze warning system, but such devices are
normally expensive
PCD Automatic Monitoring Station in Chiangmai
!
City hall station
!
!
Air quality parameters: CO, NO,
NO2, NOx, SO2, O3, PM10
!
!
Meteorological parameters: wind
speed and direction, temperature,
relative humidity, solar radiation,
barometric pressure, and rainfall
intensity
!
Yupparaj School
Air quality parameters: CO,
NO, NO2, NOx, SO2, O3, PM10
Meteorological parameters:
wind speed and direction,
temperature, relative humidity,
solar radiation, barometric
pressure, and rainfall intensity
Source: http://aqnis.pcd.go.th/station/
Problem 1: Too few Government
Weather Stations that monitor Haze
http://air4thai.pcd.go.th/web/index.php
Problem 2: Lack of ‘local’ Information
Air Quality Index (AQI) information is measured from
somewhere else (i.e. not in the rural neighborhood). AQI
information barely reaches the rural polulation.
Lack of awareness contribute to continued burning of crop
fields. This is mainly a man-made disaster !
Image credits:
http://www.epa.gov/oar/particlepollution/pdfs/pm-color.pdf
http://air4thai.pcd.go.th/
O U R I N I T I AT I V E
We n e e d
‘Down-to-Earth’
‘Easy-to-Deploy’
‘Easy-to-Understand’
low-cost technology for haze
monitoring in rural communities
Some Technologies to Identify
Haze
Satellite Imaging
Ground Image Processing
Air Quality Sensors
Some PM sensor models
Price: $$$$
Image source:
http://www.metone.com
Price: $$$
Image source:
http://www.shinyei.co.jp
Price: $
Image source:
http://www.samyoungsnc.com
Our Invitation : Join us, Make it happen
•
Low-Cost Technology & Methodology Development :
•
•
Field Experiments
•
•
•
IoT-style, “open” and aimed for rural applications
As a part of our ongoing and new CWMN
deployments
In rural villages
Data Calibration, Collection, and Correlation
•
Validation is the key!
Thank you & Contact Us
Apinun Tunpan, Ph.D.
atunpan@ait.asia